About 2,000 people endured a downpour in Atlanta to hear speakers talk of the need for justice for Trayvon Martin and other black youths.

The Trayvon Martin Prayer Vigil and Rally, in downtown, began with chants of "no justice, no peace," and "Trayvon, Trayvon, Trayvon" before speakers urged the crowd to register to vote and to seek repeal of Georgia's stand your ground law.

Martin Luther King III urged the audience to go to Washington, D.C., on August 24 for the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and his father's famous "I Have a Dream" speech. "It's marching time, ladies and gentlemen," he said.

At least several people in the crowd were treated for heat-related illness after fainting on the sweltering day.

At a rally in Miami, Martin's father, Tracy, told supporters that after the acquittal he has "come to realize George Zimmerman wasn't on trial - Trayvon was on trial."

In Los Angeles, about 500 people converged on the federal courthouse in Los Angeles under gray skies, toting signs saying "Open Season on the Black Man" and "This Should Not Be OK in 2013 America."

In Chicago, some 500 people rallied across from the Everett McKinley Dirksen federal courthouse.

"We are standing up here today to say to our young people, 'we value your lives,'" said Chicago Urban League Chief Executive Officer Andrea Zopp, who has a 17-year-old son. "The civil rights movement is not over."

Rapper MC Lyte told the crowd: "When the verdict was read, I felt like we lost Trayvon Martin all over again."

In Oakland, a crowd of up to 150 people demonstrated peacefully in the city's downtown, occasionally singing "We Shall Overcome" before dispersing in the late afternoon.

And across the bay in San Francisco, about 100 people gathered in front of the Federal Building.

Reverend Arnold Townsend, 70, vice president of the local NAACP chapter, vowed to "bring to light this incident (and) let black children know the system has them under attack."

Comments

Reading editorials and responses, it is obvious that there are heated passions on both sides of the Zimmerman trial. However, whether you believe he should have been found guilty or not guilty, we should all be able to agree that the stand your ground law should be repealed. With a quick google search for: found innocent "stand your ground" -zimmerman (-zimmerman prevents finding his case), I was able to find numerous such cases, some of which the person should have been found innocent but would have under past self defense laws but many others where someone literally got by with murder. In reviewing some of these cases, it becomes obvious that juries have a tendency to give the benefit of doubt to the perpetrator as long as he claims to have been afraid, even when the situation makes it obvious that no immediate threat existed. Let's get behind the overturning of this bad law and stop the bickering over the verdict of the Zimmerman trial.

"We should all be able to agree that the stand your ground law should be repealed"
Really? and why is that?
First, what exactly does stand your ground mean and how are things different without stand your ground? Prior to the stand your ground law, in Florida, you had an obligation to retreat as much as possible prior to using deadly force for self-defense, if you felt you were in danger of serious bodily harm or death. If you were on a street and a predator was trying to attack you, whether it be with their fists, a knife, or their own firearm, the law said you had to retreat as much as possible before you could respond with your own force. Stand your ground removed the requirement that you first retreat as far as possible.
Stand your ground was not used as a defense in the Zimmerman trial, because it did not apply. At the point in time in which Zimmerman unholstered his weapon and used it in self-defense, he was on his back on the ground. It would not have been possible for him to retreat any further, while on his back. So even had stand your ground not been Florida law, he would have still been justified in using his firearm, at that moment.
Now a broader discussion of stand your ground:
Let's assume a law abiding citizen is carrying their firearm and they are in a shopping center parking lot. They observe a man attempting to abduct a girl. Under stand your ground, that citizen would be able to use their firearm to defend the girl from a forceable felony. But absent stand your ground, that citizen would have to retreat as far as possible, content with only calling 911 and hoping the police can get there quick enough, which is statistically unlikely.
Scenario 2: a law abiding citizen is out for a jog, once again carrying their legally owned firearm. A mugger appears and points a firearm at the jogger demanding their money. Under this scenario, the jogger can claim they reasonably feared for their life. With stand your ground, they can take the chance that the mugger is truly only after their money and hand over the money or they can pull and discharge their own firearm. However, absent stand your ground laws, that jogger would first have to try and run away as far as possible and hope the mugger does not attempt to use their firearm.
In summary, stand your ground upholds the right of law abiding citizens to defend themselves, outside of their home, without turning the law abiding citizen into a criminal.

You, obviously, didn't bother doing any research. In one case I found, a man was verbally threatened by a relative that was inside a car. The man went into his house, got a rifle and came back out and fired three shots into the car. Released on "stand your ground". I found several similar cases on the first page of my search as suggested above. I see you are still tied up on the Zimmerman case but the flaws in the law go far beyond this case. The only significance of the Zimmerman case is the fact that it brought the law into public scrutiny.

Jan if someone breaks in my home (home invasion) and i am upstairs its a dang long jump to the ground. If the law is repealed this by law i am due by law to run like He% and hope i get away before the a&^ho& shoots and kills me and my family....This is what youi desire

First, your statistic makes no difference when one considers the problems with the law.

Second, your stats are flawed. If you exam the stats based on the one killed, we find a disproportionate amount getting off that killed an African-American person while the law is less likely to aid one that killed a Caucasian, regardless of the race of the survivor of the confrontation.

My point still stands. The law is flawed and needs to be overturned or replaced with something more reasonable. Award88 may have some legitimate points on the strictness of the previous self defense laws so we should exam reasonable compromises that do not encourage deadly confrontations. We should not degenerate into a society that accepts duels which are legitimized under the Stand Your Ground laws where there exists the mutual fear between the opponents that they will be killed if they don't react faster and with greater accuracy.

In other words Jan, we shouldn't and don't all agree. Tell you what. You turn around and run. I'm going to stand my ground. And yes, I pack a concealed weapon that I am lawfully licensed to carry. If you and other little school room sissies don't like it, I could really care less.

This is such a stupid debate! One, "Stand Your Ground" was not used in the Zimmerman trial. Two, SYG was not applicable to the Zimmerman case anyway. Zimmerman had already "retreated" as far as he could go. He was on the ground getting his head smashed into the sidewalk. I would say he had went as far back as he was going to go. Politicians and "Community Activist" or AKA "attention Whores with no real jobs" are using it as a way to go after self-defense laws. Reminds me of Sandy Hook and the aftermath assault on legal gun carrying citizens. And lets put the blame where it belongs in this case. Thanks to all the media outlets (especially liberal media) this case has been blown out of proportion. If anyone argues with this they are morons. All I have to do is point to Geraldo Rivera claiming Trayvon Martin was shot because he was wearing a hoodie. WTF! Then again, anyone who actually listens to anything Geraldo says is an idiot anyways. Then we have another news agency editing Zimmerman's 911 call to make him sound like a racist. Media and overall ignorance is to blame for this circus. Yes the people have a right to know, but how about knowing the truth for a change? Then again, some people will believe anything Al Sharpton says on TV. What does that guy do for a living? other than act like a political ambulance chaser in a awful looking cheap suit?

Jan - i would love to have a reasonable debate on race. But using this issue to forward such a debate is somewhat deceitful. Only if you believe every word form CNN is George Zimmerman "white." The simple truth is that, if this had been a black man killing another black man it would bareley have rated the newspaper, much less national media. Same goes for a white man killing a white man. The media latched on to a young black man having been killed by a man who could be considered white because one of his parents is white, and once Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson grabbed hold, the race was on. Politicians like Hank Johnson and Sheila Jackson-Lee didn't help in calming the situation. If anything, they did all they could to exacerbate the situation and enflame racial tensions. Barack Obama did the same. Instead of focusing on the over-abundance of black-on-black crime in the inner cities, these politicians and the news-media held breathless hold to a year-old case of self-defense that never once invoked Stand Your Ground. Why? Because it was politically prudent for them to be in the spotlight for their base.

Why the obsession with the race? But if you insist, let me point out the ease in which both the left and the right misrepresent the obvious. While it is true that in the inner city we do have an over abundance of black on black crime, this fact is emphasized by both the left and right. But it is a misrepresentation. In truth, it is the inner city slums and an attitude of distrust that breeds crime. The apparent racial bias is a result of African Americans being more likely to find themselves trapped in this existence. While sometimes some people are overly diligent in protecting the rights of minorities, it is a result of centuries of overt, legalized discrimination. Now many are trying once again to justify discriminatory practices based on misleading statistics. Might I suggest a book on statistics to further understand the misinterpretation of statistics. The book is "How to Lie with Statistics" By Darrell Huff. It is the best selling book on statistics.

There is no "obsession" with race on my part. I was merely pointing out that so many have used the Zimmerman trial as a means of pushing forward a racial agenda. The media has a history of, essentially, burying stories about black-on-white or black-on-black crime, but in this instance, they tried to force-feed us a case of "white hispanic"-on-black crime, as though it was somehow a microcosm of race relations in this country.

Just how are black Americans "trapped" in this existence? I spoke to many older people of varying ethnicities while I was in college, and almost all of them said that when things got tough, they would move to where things were better, regardless the sacrifice. These moves ocurred during the 1930s to 1960s. Are you saying that people now somehow have less resolve than people back then, and are thus more inclined to remain "trapped" than to better their situation? Are they just unwilling to try and improve their situation?

Seems to me, if you are in a neighborhood that "breeds crime," then the best thing to do is get out of that neighborhood. If you are truly inclined to make a better life, then nothing will stop you. And I don't consider that an idealist view. I know too many people who made the necessary sacrifices in order to better their own lives to think that it is idealistic today.

"The book is "How to Lie with Statistics" By Darrell Huff. It is the best selling book on statistics."

Statistics don't lie, people do. Drawing a distinction between statistics and lying ignores the process in which stats are socially constructed. You say Black Americans are "trapped" in poverty, yet you offer no statistics to back your claim and can't because your statistics would be false. You have a straw man argument based on the fallacy or misrepresentation of your opponent's position.

You practice classic tactical diversion on the premise of debate. Your attempt to use a book that is 59 years old and calling it a best seller is statistically also not in your favor. Best Seller with under 2 million copies sold in a 59 year time frame? That is hardly a statistic in your favor. It is easy to see how you want to ignore statistics when there are none supportive to your argument.

Statistics don't lie, people do. What are the odds (statistically) that (you) Jan and Say_that_again are not the same person? The statistics are not in your favor,

The argument that stand your ground laws are somehow discriminatory agaisnt blacks is at best shallow, but more likely hollow. If a black person is killed in this country, 92% of the time it is by another black person. If you want to discuss inter-racial crime; 81% of the time the perpetrator is black and the victim is white.
We have to be more responsible for ourselves and our familes' safety. The police do as good a job as they can but cannot be everywhere. That includes arming yourself if you choose; AFTER adequate use and safety training. The laws should encourage us to be more responsible for our own well being and not set us up to be victims.

Yep. African Americans "chose" to be captured and brought to America as slaves. After winning their freedom, they were major supports of segregation - they were even had the right to separate water fountains and restrooms until the 60's, not to mention schools that received less funding than the white schools. They chose to be discriminated against in education opportunities. They think it is so much fun to be "stopped while black" by police. To say "they brought this on themselves" is only an example of the ability of someone with strong ingrown racism that they can't even recognize it. I grew up in the 40's and 50's in the south. White people did not believe they were racist then with their own rationalizations for the practices I mentioned above. Now, because of the strides, people like you still want to rationalize their racist attitudes. As for your blind acceptance of NRA propaganda, you are more likely to be killed by a gun if you carry one regularly than you are likely to get the chance to be judged by 12. By carrying a gun, you are also increasing the danger to those around you. Gun owners have a much greater risk of relatives being accidentally killed by their gun than of stopping a crime with it.

check what is the number one murder scenario in America today..oops, that's right... black killing black...real sorry what happened 450 yrs ago, but this is now and the american black culture is lost and they only have themselves to blame.no more excuses, please..

This is Jan we are talking about here. He couldn't distinguish fact from fiction if is life depended on it. I said this before, Jan is a product and promoter of government school. I am glad he is retired so that he cannot provide and spread his propaganda to the youth of our country any longer. And along with his disdain for the 2nd Amendment of the Constitution, he obviously doesn't like the 1st one either since he had my previous comment along these same lines removed. That's what he does when he doesn't like what you had to say. Wonder how long it will take him to whine about this one!